


i am holding on to your soul

by secondsandhours



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, and then things get sad, bellamy and clarke are domestic and cute, seriously they get sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 07:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4383170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondsandhours/pseuds/secondsandhours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm in love with you," he says against her mouth, just like every other morning.</p><p>"I'm in love with you," she whispers back, just like every other morning.</p><p> </p><p>Clarke moves to Atlanta for a new start and her best friend, and if she falls in love with the guy who lives across the hall, she doesn't mind too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am holding on to your soul

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea for this for about a year, and only just got around to writing it last night, when my fingers punched out 8k+ words of a fic that was only supposed to be around 2k? Wtf, fingers? Anyway, uh, sorry in advance.
> 
> Title comes from Your Soul by Rhodes.

The apartment building is a lot different from the big suburban house - or mansion, as Raven refers to it - that Clarke grew up in. It's old and rundown and musty, but even though Clarke has only just started moving her things in, it feels more like home than her childhood house ever did.  
  
(Which isn't to say things weren't good in that house, because they were. It just always felt like something was missing. Like there could be more.)  
  
(More of what, Clarke doesn't know.)  
  
She drops the box she's carrying marked _these are your linens_ onto the floor and pauses to catch her breath and take a look around. Surrounded by the sounds of her downstairs neighbor watching what might be wrestling and the distant traffic outside, Clarke thinks, _yes. Home_.

 

 

She remembers breaking the news to her mother that she was moving three states away.

"It's a great opportunity. The rehabilitation center there is in need of a new physical therapist and they've offered me a really great position. The place is pretty great," Clarke rambles.  
  
"Stop saying 'great.'"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"There are two things I don't like about this," Abby had said in between sips of mimosa. "One: you already have a _great_ position for you at the hospital. Two: why would you want to move down south? Do you even realize how terrible people can be down there? You remember the Civil War, correct?"  
  
"Um," Clarke said. "Not really. I mean, it was so long ago. My memory isn't as good as it was back in 1860."  
  
" _Clarke_." She had used her stern voice, the one that used to make Clarke straighten up, get serious, but now just makes her want to roll her eyes.  
  
"Mom, we live in Virginia. People suck just as much here as they do down there. Besides, Atlanta isn't too bad. I'm not moving into a small town or anything." She shoved a forkful of fettuccine noodles into her mouth. She was stress eating, and she knew it, but she had to get through this conversation.

Abby watched her eat for a moment, pensive look on her face. "I just don't understand. Why would you want to quit working at our hospital? Mount Weather Memorial has always been the plan. I know things have been...difficult...since your father died -"

"I'm not talking about Dad," Clarke said, voice suddenly tight.

"- but you want to leave?" Abby continued, not even acknowledging Clarke's interruption. "I doubt whatever center you're talking about could offer you as many benefits as MWM. You need to think about this."

"I've already thought about it. I'm going. I don't care about the benefits. I just need to get away from here. I need a fresh start." Something Abigail Griffin would know nothing about.

"Well," Abby said, picking up her mimosa, "if you're sure."

"I am," she said. And she was.

****  
  
  


She starts being a little less sure after she's been living there for a week and she finds the two foot wide hole in her wall.

She'd been struck with the idea to spend the day redecorating early that morning, an idea that seemed brilliant at the time but has her almost in tears now. She's spent the last four hours peeling wallpaper off the walls around the place, and her fingers are red and raw. To top things off, it turns out that whoever occupied the apartment before her had thrown something through the wall, and instead of filling the hole, they'd just decided to wallpaper over it.

 _Fuck_ , she thinks to herself. "Nice," she says, also to herself.

She spends about twenty minutes just sitting on the hardwood floor staring at the hole, and finally figures she might as well take a late night trip to the closest Home Depot to get something to fill it.

She grabs her keys from her kitchen counter, slips on some sneakers, and heads out the door -

\- where she comes face to face with the neighbor across the hall.

(She doesn't know anything about her neighbors, save for the woman who lives below her, a gorgeous thirty year old chef named Anya who watches UFC until three o'clock on the dot every single night and tells Clarke that if she ever made too much noise, there might be an arm bar in her future. She's kind of scary. Clarke kind of likes her.)

This neighbor, the across the hall one, is a guy a little older than Clarke. He's taller than she is, but not so much she has to break her neck to look up at him. His dark hair falls, messy and wavy, over his forehead, and it makes him look a little boyish. Really, he's gorgeous, and Clarke thinks _fuck_ again, because he's staring at her and she looks exactly like she's spent the entire day redecorating her place. Which is to say: Not great. Her old cutoffs and t-shirt seem a lot rattier than they had thirty seconds ago.

He looks at her for what seems like hours but is definitely only seconds before he turns to head into his own apartment. Just as his door is about to shut, she steps forward.

"Wait! Um," she says. He opens his door a few inches. "Do you happen to know anything about fixing holes in walls?"

He looks at her, emotionless and god, this is getting so awkward why didn't you just go to the store, Clarke, _why_ \- and then he opens his door the rest of the way. "Yeah. You need Spackle." His voice is a lot deeper and gruffer than she figured it would be, but it's nice, she thinks.

"Right. Spackle," she repeats, and she must look utterly clueless because he's laughing and telling her, "Hold on."

He disappears into his apartment for a minute. She chews on her thumbnail. He comes back out, carrying an orange bucket.

"Show me where it is," he says.

There's a second where Clarke thinks _hey, maybe I shouldn't let this stranger inside my apartment where we'll be alone_ , but the thought passes, and she leads him inside.

 

 

"You know, this actually explains a lot."

The two of them are staring at the hole, much like she was doing alone less than an hour ago. Her neighbor's head is tilted, observing it like he's admiring a piece of art in a museum, and Clarke finds it endearing.

"What does it explain, exactly?" she asks.

He crosses his arms. "The two guys who lived here before you - Monty and Jasper - they were always making so much noise, always getting into something they shouldn't have. I heard a huge crash one night from over here - I remember, it had to have been like, four in the morning, and I rushed over to make sure neither of them had died or blown themselves up or something, and I knocked on the door. Monty answered, and he was just crying from laughter. He sent me back to my apartment, and neither of them ever told me what happened. I suppose this is from whatever that was."

"Hm. I bet Anya really enjoyed living below them," Clarke says.

"Oh, you can be sure she was part of the reason they moved out." He reaches down to his bucket and digs around for a second, tools clattering against each other. He comes back up holding a pencil and a ruler. "So this is a lot larger than I thought it would be, meaning I'm gonna need a lot more than just Spackle, but I can go ahead and cut this into a square so it's easy to fix once we get back from the store."

"God, no you don't have to do all of this," she tells him, but he's already marking the wall around the hole. "I can do this myself, I just have to figure out what I need."

He concentrates on his ruler, getting the lines as straight as possible. "I'm sure you're capable, but I don't mind. I've got a little sister that I've pretty much had to raise myself, so I'm used to helping out, taking care of stuff. It's not a big deal." He looks at her over his shoulder, warm brown eyes finding her pale blue ones. "You have to drive though. And maybe get me a burger. I'm going to need food if I'm going to spend the next couple of hours fixing this," and it sounds a little like a guilt trip, but he grins to show he's joking, and Clarke finds herself smiling back.

He turns back to the wall, and in the back of her mind, she thinks that he looks like he belongs there.

****  
  
  


She asks him his name in her car, literally smacks herself in the forehead when she realizes she doesn't know it.

"Bellamy Blake," he says through a laugh, pulling her hand away from her face. "What's yours?"

"I'm Clarke Griffin."

They shake hands at the next red light.

****  
  
  


They spend the next four hours together. They sit on her bare floor, long after the hole is filled and their burgers are gone, just talking. They share dead parent stories (his story: his mother died when he was twenty-two and his sister - Octavia - was sixteen, in a car accident) (her story: her father died when she was twenty-four during a convenience store robbery), they talk about their jobs (he's a pilot, flies cargo across the country) (she's a physical therapist when her mother wants her to be a surgeon), they talk about their friends (his best friend is named Miller, and they fly together) (her best friend is named Wells and she wanted so badly for him to move with her), and they talk about everything else. It's the easiest, most natural conversation Clarke can ever remember having, so effortless she starts to wonder how she ever talked to anyone else, and when they look at the clock and see that it's two in the morning and Bellamy says he should probably get to bed, she isn't at all surprised when she finds herself not wanting it to end.

He's leaning up against her doorframe, playing with a spot where some spackle got on his shirt. It feels like they're both stalling.

"Thanks for patching up my wall, Bellamy," she tells him, hand placed loosely on the doorknob.

"Don't worry about it. Let me know if anything else needs fixing. Next time, I'll let you do it and just walk you through it."

She laughs, presses her head to the doorframe on the opposite side of where he's leaning. "That sounds nice. I'll break my sink in the morning just to make sure that happens."

Bellamy smiles lazily, lips closed. He shoves himself away from the door. "I'll see you then, Griffin. Goodnight."

"Yeah," she says softly. "Goodnight."

She waits until she hears his door lock from across the hall to close her own.

****  
  
  


"Who is he?"

Clarke snaps out of her thoughts and looks down at Raven, walking slowly around the large rectangular pool. "What?"

"The guy who's got you smiling like that. Come on, Clarke, who is he?"

Raven is Clarke's closest friend, with the exception of Wells. They went to high school together, met when their boyfriend turned out to be the same guy. If there's anything Clarke is thankful for when it comes to Finn Collins, it's that he brought Raven Reyes into her life. They kept in touch after the drama, and when Raven moved to Georgia for college, Clarke was more than upset. But their friendship endured, through college and shitty boyfriends and shitty girlfriends and shitty jobs, their presence in each other's lives just grew stronger. When Raven injured herself while rock climbing, breaking her back and losing the feeling in her left leg, she asked Clarke to move to Atlanta to help her with her rehabilitation. A couple calls to one rehabilitation center later, and Clarke was resigning from Mount Weather Memorial and putting her too large house back on the market.

After almost a decade of being as close as sisters, it's no wonder Raven can tell when someone is on Clarke's mind.

Clarke sits down on the edge of the pool and sticks her feet in. The water comes up to the middle of her calves, and she wonders if she'd get in trouble for swimming with Raven. "He's just one of my neighbors. He helped me fill a hole a few nights ago."

Raven makes a sound in the back of her throat and wiggles her eyebrows. "Oh yeah, I'm sure he did. Nice work, Griffin."

Clarke reaches down to splash Raven, but laughs while she does it. " _In my wall._ That is not what I meant, and you know it."

"So, tell me about this beautiful handyman neighbor."

Raven takes another lap around the pool, focusing on stepping with her bad leg, trying to keep her balance even in the water. "There's not much to tell," Clarke says, which is bullshit, because there's four hours worth of stuff to tell, but she wants to keep some of it to herself. "We went to Home Depot, he fixed my wall, and then we talked for a little while. It was no big deal. And you know, that float is in there for a reason. Just because you're in a pool doesn't mean you can't strain yourself. Use it if you need to."

"Fuck the float, and don't change the subject," Raven says. "What's his name?"

Clarke sighs. "Bellamy."

"Weird. Kinda hot. Can I meet him?"

"God, no," Clarke snorts. "You would find a thousand ways to embarrass me."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Raven speeds up, slips on the pool floor after a few steps. "Dammit!"

"What did I just say about straining yourself? Don't push it, Raven. It's not like there's a time limit on these things. You need to take it slow for awhile. You've only just started to walk again. You're doing great, but you're going to do more harm than good by overworking yourself." Clarke leans down and helps her best friend from the pool, water drenching her where they touch. They shuffle over to a seat so Raven can dry off.

"I'm just tired of the wheelchair. I'm ready to start using the brace. Sitting in that thing all the time is making me restless," Raven says, voice muffled from under her towel.

"I know," Clarke says. "But you're going to get there. You just need time."

They're quiet for a bit while Raven towels herself off. Clarke hates seeing Raven get so frustrated, knows Raven hates it even more.

"We haven't talked about your mom yet. How did she take the news of you quitting and moving down here?" It's obvious that Raven is changing the topic on purpose, that she'd rather talk about Clarke's issues than her own. Clarke lets it happen.

"Oh, you know. She still thinks that she knows what's best for me. I try to tell her that I'm twenty-five years old and I can make my own decisions, but she doesn't ever believe me."

Raven leans forward and rests her arms on her knees. "I know things have been weird between you since your dad died, and I know she's never been the perfect mother, but she loves you. You know that. I still believe she just doesn't want to let you go."

"Yeah, I guess." Clarke stands and holds her hands out to Raven again. "Let's go get changed. Do you think we should go out for drinks?"

"I think you just read my mind."

****  
  
  


Clarke doesn't break her sink, but she does break her air conditioner, and it's only sort of on purpose.

Summers in Georgia are hell, something Raven failed to mention when she asked Clarke to move. Clarke wakes up drenched in sweat and has to check her weather app six times to make sure it's right when it tells her it's ninety-one degrees outside but it feels like a hundred and twenty five. Her apartment is muggy and she's already dehydrating, and her poor air conditioner is doing it's very best to cool it down. She tries messing with it, and when it sputters pathetically, she kicks the machine out of frustration.

Big mistake.

It has to be a thousand years old with how easily it dies after her kick. She watches as the fan stops spinning, and then she sits down on the floor, and then she yells in frustration. Not two minutes later, there's a knock on her door.

She pouts all the way to the door, dying with every step, and she knows she's over exaggerating, but really, she's never been so hot in her entire goddamn life. She starts to open the door, and he's talking before he even sees her.

"I was headed out to go to the lake and I heard you shout and - wow," Bellamy says as he takes in her appearance. She's well aware that she's only in a dark blue bra and some bright green Soffe shorts, hair frizzed, scowling. "Uh. Are you okay?"

Is she okay? Did that honestly seem like a question he should ask? "My A/C is busted and it's a thousand degrees in here," she grinds out through her teeth. "So, no. I'm not really okay right now."

He furrows his brow and walks past her, straight to her air conditioning unit. He stares at it from a few different angles, much like he stared at the hole before fixing it. "No big deal. Let me get my tools."

She kind of wants to cry. "Bellamy, you don't need to do this -"

"I already told you, I don't mind," he interrupts her. "Besides, I told you I would let you do the work this time."

And that's how she finds herself up to her elbows in grease from the machine and up to her head in sweat from the heat, Bellamy sitting next to her, coaching her on what to mess with.

"Twist that a little. No, the other way - there you go," he says. He takes a few pulls from the beer he brought over. ("Sunday morning appliance work sustenance," he tells her. "Who cares that it isn't noon yet?")

"If this doesn't work, I'm going to kill you with this wrench," Clarke grunts. He presses his cold bottle to the nape of her neck in response, causing her to shriek. "Hey!"

He's laughing at her when she turns to look at him. "Sorry, couldn't resist. This will work, though. I've fixed A/Cs tons of times. Living down here, they overwork themselves and are always breaking. It's something I had to learn." Just as he says this, the machine kicks back on, the hum loud, music to Clarke's ears.

She actually does start to cry. Just a few tears, but she's so happy and hot that she can't help it. She scrubs at her face, embarrassed. "Shit. Raven would be so proud of me right now."

"Raven?"

"Yeah, she's the girl I moved down here for. She's a mechanic. I'll have to call her later and tell her I fixed this." She looks at Bellamy. She can't decipher the expression on his face and she's about to ask about it when he hastily grabs his tools and beer and heads for the door.

"I should probably go," he says shortly.

Clarke is more than a little confused about his change in attitude. "Oh, um. Okay. Thanks for helping me out again. Let me know how I can repay you this time."

"Don't worry about it. Just come get me if it breaks again. You'll probably need a new one eventually, but it'll do for now." He shuffles out into the hallway as she holds the door open for him. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah, okay. See you." Clarke shuts the door behind him and shakes her head. She wonders about him leaving so suddenly, can't think of a reason why. "Oh, well," she says under her breath. "Whatever."

She's just adjusting the temperature on the thermostat when he knocks at her door again. She knows it's him and she's sure she's about to get whiplash from this encounter. She opens the door and looks up, a question on her lips.

He beats her to it. "Do you want to go to the lake with me?"

****  
  
  


He makes her drive, says she needs to practice driving on the roads in Georgia and that he shouldn't since he's already been drinking. He directs her almost an hour north to Lake Lanier. They stop at a Wal-Mart on the way, grabbing some food and drinks and other random things people take to the lake. Clarke gets a new swimsuit, a black two piece that makes her feel a little sexy in the changing room.

Mostly, she buys it for herself. Partially, she buys it for Bellamy.

They find a secluded area where the sun is hitting perfectly and set up, laying out their cheap beach chairs and cracking open Bellamy's large blue cooler. Clarke sets up her portable radio and puts on a playlist that Wells made her for  _Sunny Southern Days_.

It's four degrees hotter than it had been when she woke up, but Clarke doesn't mind, just follows Bellamy into the lake, running past him and laughing as he stares at her in her new black bikini, eyes lingering in places Clarke can practically feel.

They swim for a long time, taking turns dunking each other underwater. It's the most fun Clarke's had in months, and she tells him as much, arms wrapped around his shoulders, their faces close together and he holds them up above the water.

"Thank you for what you've done for me. I was a total stranger that night we first met, and you didn't care, just came in and took care of me like it was your job. Thanks for bringing me out today, too. I didn't know how much I needed it." She looks at him for a moment, pondering something, and then leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek. It's chaste and slick with lake water, and she hopes whatever sun she's gotten so far can cover up the blush on her cheeks.

He's not looking at her, but at something in the distance behind her. In fact, he seems pretty determined to not look at her. And she gets why when he asks "What about Raven?"

It clicks, instantly, and then she's laughing, wholeheartedly. Now he's looking at her, slightly offended. "No, oh my god. No, we're not - she's not my girlfriend."

"No?" he asks.

"No," she shakes her head, smile still wide on her face. "She's another one of my best friends, way back from high school. She got hurt and needed physical therapy, and she wanted me to be the one who helped her. She's definitely not my girlfriend. I mean, I've got a few ex-girlfriends, but Raven isn't one of them."

Bellamy stares at her, rendered momentarily speechless. "Thank god," he gets out, and then he's leaning forward and kissing her.

She smiles into the kiss, so much so that he has to pull away for a second, eyebrow raised in question, but she just pulls him back in. He tastes like beer and sun and lake and their teeth clack together once but it's wonderful and Clarke loves every single thing about it, from the way he has one hand pressed to the small of her back while his other is still trying to tread water to the way they end up with water halfway up their faces when they sink a little too low. They break away from each other and push themselves back up, coughing and laughing and blissed out of their minds.

****  
  
  


They stop and get milkshakes from Steak N Shake on the way home, sleepy and red from the sun. The radio is on but turned down low, and they're not speaking, silent except for Clarke humming along to the music every now and then. Their hands are clasped in the middle of the seats, and Clarke thinks, _yes. Home_.

****  
  
  


"You've been seeing this guy for just over a month, and you are out of this world in love with him," Raven says from where she's lying on the floor below Clarke. Clarke pushes forward on her leg slowly, folding it up towards Raven's chest.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please," Raven scoffs. "I've been around to see you with every single one of your partners - which, can we please discuss how cowboyish that sounds?"

Clarke laughs and goes to stretch Raven's other leg. "We've already discussed that, and we decided that yes, it sounds very cowboyish."

"I love it. _Partners_. Anyway, I've been around to see you with all of them, and you've never looked this way when you were with any of them. Not even Lexa."

Clarke stands up and helps Raven to her feet to do the next stretch. "He just makes me happy."

Raven smiles at her, genuine and kind. "And you're out of this world in love with him."

****  
  
  


That night, Clarke stands in her kitchen and watches Bellamy over the counter as he reclines on her couch, one arm behind his head, eyes fixated on some random cooking show. She studies him, her hands itching to sketch him. She pulls a pen out of one of her drawers, tears off a paper towel, and does just that.

It's messy, more scribbles than it is anything else, but it's undeniably him. She hangs it on her refrigerator.

They have sex for the first time that night, right on her ugly yellow couch, cooking show on in the background. It's a little awkward and uneven at first, the way it sometimes is with new people. They don't fit together perfectly, and then they do. It's slow and hot and halfway through the remote falls off the couch and startles them both as it hits the hard floor, and then they're laughing and moving against each other again. He sits up, kisses her neck, twines his hands with her hair, and she thinks, _I am out of this world in love with you_. He sucks a hickey onto her clavicle, and she thinks, _I am so glad I found you_. He presses his lips to hers, open mouthed and wanton, and she thinks, _Please don't ever leave me_. He reaches a hand down between them, and she thinks nothing at all.

They lie together, after, naked and too hot and silent. Her air conditioner, always problematic, whines until it shutters off again.

She can't find it within herself to care.

****  
  
  


Things are great, until they aren't.

She finds out a month later, when the leaves start changing from soft greens to blazing reds and there's a chill in the air more often than not. She wakes up like she has almost every day for all of August; warm and content and smiling, wrapped up in Bellamy's arms, their bare skin pressed together.

She rubs the sleep from her eyes and gazes at him next to her lazily.

"Weirdo. Stop watching me," he murmurs, but keeps his eyes shut and his breathing steady.

"Don't move," she tells him. She untangles herself from him and rolls out of bed, pulling on his discarded white t-shirt from the day before. She pulls her sketchbook from her bedside table and puts pencil to paper.

She takes her time, wanting to get every detail right. It takes her awhile, but she knows he doesn't mind the opportunity to rest for a little longer. She shows it to him when she's done, and he shakes his head at it and grins. There's something about the sketch that, even on paper, makes him seem so alive. He kisses her, unabashedly, and she doesn't even mind the morning breath.

"I'm in love with you," he says against her mouth, just like every other morning.

"I'm in love with you," she whispers back, just like every other morning.

He twists his head so that his nose is pressed to her neck, and he inhales deeply. "I've got to go to work today," he mutters. "I'll probably be taking a trip soon."

Her heart pounds.

"That's okay. I've been starting to wonder whether or not you've been lying about your piloting job, anyway," she jokes. "You spend all your time here, it was starting to get a little weird."

"Hey," he laughs, pushes her slightly so she's on her back and he's resting above her. She takes him in, all messy black hair and warm brown eyes. She counts his freckles, kisses a few of them.

"When do you have to leave?" she asks against his cheek.

He looks up at her alarm clock, flashing numbers saying 11:27 AM. "Pretty soon," he says, tone apologetic.

She gives him a shove. "Let's go shower, then. You smell like me." She grasps his hand and pulls him off the bed, leading him to the bathroom.

"That's the way I like it," he says, and she laughs.

****  
  
  


It's when he's been gone for an hour or so that Clarke decides she needs to go grocery shopping. She pulls on some jeans and another one of Bellamy's left over shirts and heads out into the hallway -

\- where she comes face to face with a woman walking out of Bellamy's apartment.

It shocks her for a second, because Clarke's never seen her before, but then she pays attention to who she's looking at, and she knows right away that this is his sister, Octavia. She's tan, but not as dark as her brother, and there are tons of obvious differences, but even so, she is unmistakably Octavia Blake.

"Hi," Clarke starts. "I'm Clarke. You must be Bellamy's sister."

Octavia clenches her jaw for a fraction of a second, and then nods. "Yeah. Uh, sorry, he never mentioned you." She's carrying a cardboard moving box and sets it down so she can step forward and shake Clarke's hand.

There's something about Octavia's mood that puts Clarke a little on edge, makes her stomach twist with anxiety, but she pushes it aside. "Bellamy's mentioned you a lot," she tells Octavia. "He loves you more than anything. I was looking forward to meeting you."

Octavia stares at her, eyebrows pulled together. "Yeah. He's....um - I love him too." Her voice is wavering.

Clarke steps back, wants to give Octavia some space during what is obviously a bad time. "I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing, but maybe you should stick around? I know Bellamy would love to see you when he gets back."

Octavia snaps her head up, eyes hard and alert. "What did you just say?"

 _Something wrong, apparently_. "Oh, I just...figured you two would like to hang out for a little while when he got back from the airport."

Octavia takes a couple strides forward until she's directly in front of Clarke. "Is this supposed to be a joke? Because this isn't funny."

Clarke's eyes are wide, her fight-or-flight instincts taking effect. The twisting feeling in her gut returns, full force. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," she says as calmly as possible.

"You know exactly what you're talking about," Octavia bites out. Her green eyes are glassy and angry. "I don't know why you'd think it would be a good idea to ask me if I want to hang out with my dead brother, but it wasn't a good idea, and you can go to hell for even thinking about it." Octavia turns on her heel and rips the box off the floor, stomping down the stairs, and -

\- _what?_

Clarke backs up, trembling like a leaf, until she hits her door. She fumbles for the knob, still unlocked, and almost falls trying to get inside.

She sees Bellamy sitting on her ugly yellow couch, a place he definitely shouldn't be, because he should be at work, and she thinks, _no_.

And she thinks, _how?_

And Bellamy says, "I think we should probably talk," and she thinks, _fuck._

And then she sits on her hardwood floor, puts her head in her hands, and starts to cry.

****  
  
  


Bellamy Blake died on a Wednesday in late August, at the very same time Clarke Griffin was attending her father's funeral. He was flying his plane to Virginia from Atlanta when his engines failed and he crashed into the middle of a field. He died at twenty-nine, and he died alone.

Clarke remembers hearing about the plane crash on the news the evening it happened, remembers feeling nothing, because she was all felt out from her dad's death. Her mother had shut off the TV just before the anchors said the pilot's name, and Clarke had never thought about it again.

Until now.

"It doesn't make any sense," she whispers when he's done telling her. She wants to scream, and she wants to throw up, and she wants to smash something through her wall. She only does one of those things, gags over her trash can. She flinches when she feels Bellamy pull her hair back and rub soothing patterns into her shoulders.

She stands when she's sure she's done dry heaving and backs as far away from him as her tiny kitchen allows.

"How can I see you?" she asks, barely audible, but he hears her.

"I don't know," he says, and he looks as sad as she feels. "I really don't. I don't remember anything from before I saw you across the hall. I don't know what I was doing before that, but I don't remember any of it. I just remember the times we've been together."

"Did you know you were dead?" she asks.

He hesitates. "Not at first. Not until after we slept together, and then I was trying to figure it all out myself. I didn't know what to tell you, but Clarke, I never wanted to lie to you. I never wanted to hurt you." He takes a step forward, tentatively, and she tries to move further back, pushing against the oven handle that's digging into her hips.

"You never wanted to hurt me? Except here I am, confused as hell and hurt out of my goddamn mind!" she shouts. It's too loud in the small space. "What am I supposed to do with this? How is this supposed to work if you aren't real?" And then she's crying again. This time, he stays where he is.

She's not sure if she's grateful or offended.

"Is this some sort of unfinished business thing?" she asks when she's calmed down a little. "Am I supposed to help you get to the other side or something?"

Bellamy's lips twitch like he wants to smile, but he reins it in quick. "I don't know, Clarke. I know as much as you do."

They go silent and just look at one another until, finally, Clarke walks towards him. She stops about a foot away and puts her hand out, visibly relaxing when she can feel him under her touch. She surges forward and wraps her arms around his waist, sighs when she feels his arms come together around her shoulders.

"We'll figure it out," she murmurs into his chest. "We will."

She's not so sure.

****  
  
  


"Don't tell me there's trouble in paradise," Raven jabs. "Not only two months in."

Clarke snaps the final clasps together of Raven's leg brace. "I'm not talking about it," she grunts.

"Clarke, hey," Raven says. She places her hand on Clarke's shoulder, urging her to look up. Clarke does, and she hates the concern etched into her best friend's face. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Clarke manages, even though her eyes are stinging and her cheeks are flushed. "I'm fine."

"Did he break up with you? Did he - Clarke, I swear to god, did he hurt you?"

"Dammit, Raven, no," Clarke snaps. "No, he didn't. I just don't want to talk about it."

They sit there in silence, Clarke breathing unevenly and fighting the urge to run to the bathroom, Raven confused and worried about her best friend.

"Let's get you on the bars," Clarke mutters, and Raven doesn't argue.

****  
  
  


She starts drawing him a lot more often. She draws him so much that she can't get away from him. He covers her fridge, her coffee table. He spills out of her drawers. He's etched into the wood of her nightstand and the thick wall of her heart. She draws him sitting at her dinner table, where he no longer eats, and lying in her bed, where he no longer sleeps. She draws him lounging along the length of her couch, stretched out in the opposite direction she is, where he's not nearly as warm as he used to be.

She stops turning on the air conditioner.

Things are quieter, sadder, and when he starts to flicker one day, ever so slightly, only noticeable because she's paying attention, she isn't surprised. She figured he'd start to go eventually.

"I need you to give something to my sister," Bellamy says to her one morning. They're hanging out in her bathroom while she gets ready for work. He's perched on the edge of her bathtub, watching her apply coats of mascara in the wide mirror.

"I'm not sure that's a great idea," Clarke says. "I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm crazy." And the _she might be right_ goes unspoken, but it's still there.

"I need her to have something. Please, Clarke, I need you to give it to her."The _before I go_ goes unspoken, but it's still there.

He walks into the bedroom and rummages around on her dresser for a moment until he finds a white envelope, so full it's almost amazing that he got it to close. He brings it back in the bathroom and sets it beside her.

"Please," he whispers. His cool breath hits her neck, and she shudders.

Against her better judgment, she agrees, because she would do anything for Bellamy. "Okay."

He presses a kiss to her temple, soft, barely there, and she closes her eyes.

****  
  
  


When Clarke finds herself at Octavia's house two days later, she's battling the anxiety in her stomach once again.

"I'm pretty sure she might try to hit me this time," she says to Bellamy, who's sitting in the passenger seat beside her. They're staring at the house, a quaint little thing, made of red bricks. There's moss growing up one side of the house, and Clarke thinks it looks like a heart.

"If she does, don't hit her back. She's won every fight she's ever been in," he says, and it's supposed to be a joke, but it does nothing to lighten the mood for Clarke.

She takes a deep breath. "Better get this over with."

The time she spends waiting for the door to open after she knocks seems like the longest fifteen seconds of her entire life. She's prepared for Octavia, not the large, man who pulls the door in. He steps out, towering over her, and she stumbles a little over her words.

"I'm - Is - Octavia. I'm looking for Octavia Blake?"

The man looks her up and down, like he's assessing her, and he turns back into the house and calls for Octavia.

"Lincoln," Bellamy says into Clarke's ear. "O's boyfriend."

Clarke tries to calm herself, knows this is about to get tense. Octavia comes out.

She's pissed as soon as she settles her eyes on Clarke. "What the hell do you want?"

Clarke reaches into her purse and pulls out the envelope. "I have something for you. It's...it's from your brother."

Octavia hesitates, doesn't want to take the envelope, and Clarke doesn't blame her. But then she sees her name scrawled across the front in Bellamy's handwriting, and she reaches out, pulling it from Clarke's grasp.

Clarke backs away before anything else can be said. She rushes to her car, needs to get away from the girl who is only ever going to have painful memories of Clarke. She kind of hates herself for bringing up such awful feelings for Octavia.

She drives away, and she doesn't notice Otavia looking after her.

****  
  
  


"Thank you," Bellamy says when they pull back into the parking lot of their apartment complex.

Clarke unbuckles and leans across the middle. She rests her head on his shoulder and breathes him in, then sighs, her own shoulders falling. "I'm in love with you," she murmurs.

He plays with a strand of her blond hair and he says "I'm in love with you," and she thinks, _where is my home going to be when you leave me?_

****  
  
  


She finds out four nights later.

She comes home from work to the smell of fire and the sound of the playlist they listened to at the lake. She doesn't see Bellamy, but she knows he's there.

She hopes he's there.

She calls out for him, relaxes when he comes out of her bedroom, a soft smile on his face. He's more translucent than anything lately, a breath of the man she met in the hall, but in this moment, he seems realer than he has in weeks.

"What's going on?" she asks, manages an actual laugh as he covers her face with the hood of the jacket she has yet to take off.

"Just go where I lead you. Don't worry, I won't let you run into anything," and then she bumps into a wall. "Except for that. No, I'm kidding, I did that on purpose," and he's laughing and she's laughing and it feels so good where it bubbles out up from her chest.

He turns her into her bedroom and towards her bathroom, and really, the hood is just for theatrics, because she knows before he takes it off that he's run a bath and lit candles around it, but she still enjoys the fake surprise. He spins her around after she takes it in for a few seconds and looks down at her.

"I am in love with you, Clarke Griffin," he says. "I hate that I was only able to find that after I died."

Her eyes sting and her throat closes up, but she doesn't hide it. Not from him. "I'm in love with you too, Bellamy."

He leans down to kiss her, and it tastes like nothing.

She tries not to dwell on it.

He spins her back to the tub, helps her undress and step in. The water is the perfect temperature, and she settles in, relaxing against the wall of the tub and leaning her head back so she's looking at Bellamy.

He kneels down on the dark green bath mat and pushes his sleeves up above his elbows. He sticks his hands in the water on either side of Clarke, and then reaches for her bottle of lavender body wash. He puts some on his hands and then starts rubbing it into her skin, starting at her shoulders. She makes a sound, deep in her throat, something between a moan and a sigh, and she thinks, _I need you to stay with me_.

They talk for awhile, about nothing, about everything. About how she kind of misses her mom, about how he really misses Octavia, about how they're going to miss each other. The latter is just a thought, but they both think it, and it's louder than anything they've said previously. It echoes in Clarke's ears and in her heart.

He's in the middle of lathering up her hair with shampoo, hands scrubbing softly, when he leans in and kisses her temple. He's there and she can smell him and she can feel him and he's there -

\- and then he just. Isn't.

It doesn't hit her instantly. She doesn't feel him leave except for the spots on her head where her hair falls against her scalp, not having his hands as barrier any longer. It doesn't send any kind of jolt through her. Her heart doesn't stop beating. No, it's much more subtle. She feels it in the goosebumps that appear on her arms. She feels it in her shoulders, tensing up with the sudden loss. She hears it as a ringing in her ears, sees it as a candle blowing out. It's like she gained a sense she never had, only to have it taken from her once again; she did fine before she had it, but she did better when it was hers.

She sits in the tub until the water runs cold, and then lies down and rinses the shampoo from her hair. She takes her time getting out of the bath, blows the candles out one by one until it's pitch black in the small room. She makes her way out to her bedroom and pulls on one of his shirts, a ratty old blue thing, and pauses. She goes out to her thermostat and knocks the temperature down, and then she goes back and curls up in bed.

His spot doesn't smell like him, she observes. She's not sure if it ever did.

****  
  
  


A few weeks pass. The leaves turn from blazing reds to familiar browns, and Clarke stops looking at them. She goes to work, she dodges Raven's questions, she comes home, she dodges Wells' phone calls. She eats, she sleeps, she doesn't dream.

She keeps her TV on the cooking channel at all times.

She never turns her air conditioner off.

She organizes her drawings of Bellamy, putting them in order by date, and shoves the stack in a box that she places in the bottom corner of her closet, along with his shirts.

She does it all, day after day, again and again.

She thinks, _I miss you_.

****  
  
  


Octavia comes by twenty-three days later.

Clarke drags herself off her couch and opens the door, ready to tell the person knocking on the other side to leave her the hell alone, but she sees his sister and immediately steps back to let her in.

Octavia looks around, takes in the still bareness of the apartment (because Clarke has always had trouble unpacking after a move - it's been six months and she's still halfway living out of boxes) and looks at Clarke, eyes bright and shining.

"I need you to explain everything to me, right now, because this letter is from my brother, I know it is, but it's talking about things that happened after he died, and that is impossible. So I need to you tell me everything."

And so Clarke does. They sit at the kitchen table, drinking hot chocolate, and the story is so unbelievable, but Octavia knows it's true, every word. They're both more than a little teary eyed by the time Clarke is done.

"So...he was here? And you knew him?" Octavia asks.

"Yeah," Clarke chokes out. She clears her throat. "Almost a year after he left you, I met him, and I loved him, and then he left me too."

"This makes no sense. Did he know why he was here?"

Clarke shakes her head. "Nope. Neither of us could figure it out. But Octavia, he was as real as you or me those first two months. I don't know why he was here, but he was. And I'm sorry you didn't get to see him, but I'm so grateful that I did."

Octavia looks down and stirs her hot chocolate that must be cold by now. She stands up, suddenly, so much like her brother that Clarke can't breathe for a second. "Get dressed," she says. "I need to show you something."

****  
  
  


Octavia takes her to a graveyard and Clarke doesn't understand for a minute, until she thinks, _oh_. Of course she was going to have to visit eventually.

It's a large cemetery, a very old one, and he's buried way in the back in an area where the trees are dense and it's perfect for him, exactly where he'd want to be.

His headstone is a charcoal color. It's nothing big or fancy, the only thing Octavia and Lincoln could afford, but it'll do.

The two women stand there in silence. Clarke reads and rereads the inscription until it's burned into her memory.

_Bellamy Blake_

_April 14, 1985 - August 26, 2014_

_May We Meet Again_

She pulls her gloves off and stuffs them into her pocket, needs to feel the crisp air on her hands, needs to feel the thick ground that separates the two of them for real. She hits her knees and presses her palms to the earth, and she cries.

****  
  
  


"So are you moving back? Are you coming home?" Abby asks. The telephone line isn't clear, and her voice is scratchy when it comes through.

"No, I'm still going to keep the apartment in Atlanta. Just because Raven's done with her physical therapy doesn't mean my other patients are. And Mom," Clarke says, "this place is home. D.C. is nice and all, but I love this place."

Her mother hums from the other end. "If you're still sure," she says.

Clarke smiles. "I am."

They talk for a few more minutes, and then Clarke gets back to unpacking her boxes. Another four months later, and she's finally settling in. She hangs up the rest of her clothes, stuff that she would only have the opportunity to wear at one of Mount Weather Memorial's banquets, but she can't find it in herself to get rid of them. They hang in her closet, next to some old t-shirts that are much too large for her.

She hears her front door open, and the sound of high heels clacking on her hardwood floor. "Come on, Clarke," Octavia calls. "Please don't make me late for my own wedding."

"I'm coming!" she calls, and then she's walking out to present herself to Octavia. "Is it too much?" she asks, rubbing the dress down around her hips. "It's something my mom bought me for an old fundraiser like, five years ago."

It's dark green and form fitting, and Clarke starts getting antsy when Octavia doesn't say anything. "Hello? Earth to O? You're going to make yourself late to your own wedding."

"You look amazing," Octavia says, and her voice wavers a little. "I'm kind of sad that my brother won't get to see you in this dress, but I'm also sad because I think you look better than I do. Dammit, Clarke. Didn't you know you aren't supposed to upstage the bride?"

"Oh, come on," Clarke says, laughing. She leads Octavia out of the apartment and starts to head down the stairs. Her eyes linger on the door across the hall, and there's a pang in her chest, but it's so common that it doesn't make her as breathless as it once did. "No one is going to think I look better than you. It's not like Lincoln is even going to realize I'm there with you looking like this." She gestures at Octavia's knee length wedding gown.

Octavia smirks. "Yeah, you're right. I look amazing."

They laugh all the way to the car.

****  
  
  


Octavia gets married in a forest she and Bellamy grew up playing in in front of twenty-five people and two dogs. It's just the two of them standing, because if Bellamy couldn't be there to stand beside Lincoln like he and Octavia had always planned, then no one was going to stand up there. Instead, Clarke, who is Octavia's maid of honor (after she begged while the two were drunk off of wine coolers, claiming not to have any other friends and "what would my brother do?") is sitting next to a vacant chair, occupied only by a picture of Bellamy and Octavia, hugging in his apartment. Clarke keeps her left hand pressed firmly against the seat and pretends she can feel him bump arms with her.

 _That'll be us one day, right, Griffin?_ She can hear him ask it, clear as day.

Octavia says her vows, and Clarke tries to pay attention, except there's a breeze coming in and with it comes the smell of beer, of sun, of the lake.

She takes a deep breath.

She smiles.

She thinks, _yes._

_Home._

**Author's Note:**

> you can yell at me on [tumblr](http://aeternitae.tumblr.com/), i don't mind.


End file.
